The present invention relates to the delivery of yearbook content. Yearbooks are, generally, collections of related photographs, images, descriptions, writings and, now, video, often commemorating school activities and accomplishments. Often such are related to a particular class, military group, or other group of people such as a high school graduating class or a corporate division or department. Yearbooks provide memories to students long after they graduate and a method of finding or remembering people in organizations as they grow and shrink.
Originally, yearbooks consisted of a published book of photographic images. Each student had their class picture taken early in the year and the book is published, printed and distributed, hopefully well in advance of graduation so students were able to obtain signatures, notes, etc., of their closest friends. Although this form of yearbook worked for many years, it does have its drawbacks. First, due to publishing turnaround time, it required all content to be ready well in advance of graduation and therefore did not contain content from the last half of the graduating year. Second, it is very difficult to make changes after printing unless overlay stickers are provided. Third, it is expensive to produce and print books and, fourth, the book itself consumes natural resources to produce including paper, ink, etc.
With current technology, the publishing process of a yearbook has been dramatically improved with software tools designed for content creation and formatting, digital cameras and advanced printing presses. This expedites the creation of a yearbook, but the end user is still left with a paper book of flat images. Whatever content was created early in the graduating year is digitized, edited, organized and, once finished, used to publish the printed yearbooks. There were no provisions for individuality. No provisions for one student to annotate another student's yearbook and no provisions for making the digital yearbook resemble the paper yearbook that users are accustom to seeing.
Recently, the advent of home computers, digital books, digital televisions and home media players provide new avenues for digital publishing. The resolutions of high-definition televisions and computers are certainly sufficient for reproducing page-like photographic images and high-quality text.
Prior attempts at digital yearbook creation included digital editing to produce a paper yearbook. There was only one output format for all users, not taking into account that some users had computers, some had DVD players, some had electronic books, some had cellular phones, etc.
What is needed is a system for creation and custom delivery of yearbook content in a digital format to various classes of user devices.